


How Am I Gonna Get Myself Back Home

by Helholden



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, I Blame Tumblr, Practice Kissing, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:37:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1676666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened on the Ark between Clarke and Bellamy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Am I Gonna Get Myself Back Home

* * *

 

_i. a bridge between worlds_

 

Bellamy was gazing out of the floor length viewports at the end of the hall, the great nothingness of space all around them, but Earth was just there clear in his view. It was a large ball, perfectly shaped, white tufts of clouds passing through the atmosphere, and below that, green lands and blue oceans. It didn’t look hostile. It didn’t look poisonous.

 

It looked like home, he thought.

 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” came a sudden voice from beside him, and Bellamy looked to his right. There was a girl standing beside him in grey-blue clothes, her blonde hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. Bellamy didn’t know who she was, but she looked familiar. He had probably seen her around before. He looked away from her.

 

“Yeah,” he answered. “Too bad we’re stuck up here.”

 

“Yeah,” she agreed. She turned to look at him, catching his attention from the corner of his eye. She smiled at him, bright and warm, and held out her hand. “Clarke,” she said.

 

Bellamy glanced down at her hand. _What the hell_ , he thought. It wasn’t everyday that he met someone new. He reached out and shook her hand. “Bellamy Blake,” he told her.

 

“Clarke Griffin,” she amended with a shyer smile, dropping her hand.

 

 _Griffin_. He knew that name. “You’re Abby Griffin’s daughter.”

 

Clarke’s eyes fell immediately. She appeared lost for a moment, and then she glanced away from him to look out of the viewports again. “Yeah, that’s my mother,” she admitted reluctantly. “I guess I’m famous, huh?”

 

Her mother was a very important council member. Of course she was famous. She didn’t seem to be too happy about it, though. Bellamy knew who she was now. Everyone called her _princess_ behind her back. Well, everyone from his level. They called her friend, Wells Jaha, the son of the Chancellor, _prince_. They were practically royalty on this shithole of a vessel, and Bellamy . . .

 

He was a nobody, but he was working his way up to becoming a guard. He wasn’t there yet, but Commander Shumway said he was close.

 

She seemed nice, though. Bellamy didn’t want to be a dick.

 

He screwed up his face, shook his head. “Nah,” Bellamy replied, and he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Never heard of you.”

 

He glanced over at her out of the corner of his eyes. Clarke was staring at him, trying to gauge if he was mocking her or not. When he let a small smile creep into the corner of his mouth, Clarke suddenly beamed at him. Her whole face lit up.

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Bellamy Blake,” she finally said, nodding her head at him as she smiled.

 

Bellamy grinned, casting his gaze to outer space again.

 

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Clarke Griffin.”

 

 

_ii. ‘just friends’_

 

“Oh, that’s _cheating_. You can’t play that way,” Clarke protested, slapping her hand down on the board and shaking all of their game pieces.

 

Bellamy placed his hands on the board immediately to still it. “Hey, _watch it_ —”

 

This was his only set, and it wasn’t like he had the money to replace it if she broke it. The chess pieces were made of glass, and the board itself was, too. Bellamy had wanted a wooden one, but those were too expensive. And rare. Glass they had in abundance up here. Wood, they did not.

 

Clarke hissed, pulling her hand back. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry—”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Bellamy said, holding up a hand. “Nothing’s broken.”

 

Clarke sighed and sat back. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite of him, the chess board propped on a miniature table between them. They were also in a closet. Bellamy wasn’t ashamed to be friends with Clarke, but it was complicated. For starters, she was really cool, so they started hanging out. Bellamy, though, was twenty-one, and Clarke was only sixteen. Not to mention, they couldn’t hang out at his place. Bellamy lived with his mother and his illegal and hidden fifteen-year-old sister. Bellamy never had anyone over.

 

Which meant they could only hang out in public places on the Ark or at her place, and Clarke hadn’t gotten around to telling her parents about him either. They were only friends, but still. They didn’t think anyone would understand. Or be okay with it. So, Clarke snuck him in when her parents weren’t home, and they hid in her closet just in case anyone did come home while he was there.

 

“We have to follow the rules,” she said, lowering her chin at him. “Chess isn’t a game without rules.”

 

Bellamy shrugged. “I like to make my own rules.”

 

“You can’t do that. There’s a _set list_ of rules—”

 

Bellamy looked cheekily across the chessboard and snatched up Clarke’s king. “Checkmate,” he said.

 

Clarke sighed in exasperation, dropping her head back against the wall, banging it. “It doesn’t _work_ that way!”

 

Bellamy chuckled low. “It does my way,” he told her, dangling her king in the air between his fingers.

 

Clarke glared at him. “I didn’t teach you chess so you could change the rules,” she argued.

 

Bellamy sighed, dropping his hand. “Okay, so what? You wanna play it straight this time?” he asked her, leaning over the board. Bellamy started to realign the pieces in their proper starting places. “We’ll play one more game, and then—”

 

Clarke leaned over the chessboard, too, a little too close to Bellamy. He froze in place, lifting his eyes.

 

“I’ve had enough of chess,” she said. “Let’s do something else.”

 

Bellamy leaned back, still staring at her. “Okay, like what?”

 

Clarke was silent at first, gazing over the board at him. She bit into her lower lip, and then she leaned forward a little more. “Bellamy, have you ever kissed anyone?”

 

What kind of question was that? He felt his expression grow perturbed. “What?”

 

Clarke looked at him like he was an infant who didn’t understand English. “Have you ever _kissed_ anyone?” she repeated.

 

Bellamy blinked at her. “Yeah,” he said plainly. “Of course I have.”

 

Clarke opened her mouth, furrowing her brow. She cast her gaze to the floor. Her face was all scientific measurements and considerations, but her hands were wringing together in her lap. “I haven’t,” she admitted, raising her eyes to his.

 

“Okay . . . ” Bellamy said, not sure where she was going with this. Scratch that. He had an idea, because his palms were sweaty and his heart was racing, and when did it get so hot in here?

 

Clarke leaned closer, more than halfway over the board. And it was a really small closet.

 

“Can you show me how?”

 

He barely heard her. Her voice was just a whisper to him, and Bellamy could hear his thoughts racing at the speed of light inside his head. This was not a good idea. He knew this was not a good idea. Maybe it would be just fine for her, but Bellamy wasn’t sure what it would mean for him.

 

“You know,” Clarke continued, making gestures with her hands, “so I can be good at it one day. I don’t want to be a horrible kisser the first time I kiss someone, you know? I know how to do so much. Put any task in front of me, and I can do it, but . . . ” Clarke slumped back against the wall. “I don’t know the first thing about kissing.”

 

Bellamy didn’t want to say yes too quickly, and he didn’t want to say no too fast.

 

First of all, she was his friend, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Second of all, though, there was always that small possibility, that inkling in the sky.

 

_What if she hurts mine?_

 

Bellamy never entertained the thought of falling for Clarke, but now that the option of kissing her was presented to him, it made him think. It made him notice the way her eyes sparkled, or the way she chewed on the corner of her lip when she was nervous. It made him notice the golden shimmer of her hair, and it made him notice the slope of her . . .

 

Bellamy closed his eyes briefly, turning away.

 

He wanted to say _I don’t know that that’s a good idea_ , but what came out was, “Okay.” He sat up straight and started to move all of the chess pieces off of the board, putting them aside. He moved the board and the miniature fold-up table next, tilting them against the wall. He looked over at her. He didn’t want to be weak, he realized. If he said it was a bad idea, then he might give her ideas, and he didn’t want that.

 

 _Just do it_ , Bellamy thought. What was the big deal, anyway? He got to kiss a girl, and she got a free lesson. It seemed fair enough.

 

Clarke grinned at him like she just saw an explosion go off in front of her. Bellamy remembered reading something about fireworks. Yeah, something like that.

 

He moved closer to Clarke, and she scooted closer to him at the same time. They met in the center, him still cross-legged and Clarke kneeling in front of him.

 

“I’ll lead the way,” he said. “You just feel it and follow.”

 

Clarke nodded her head, and Bellamy took a deep breath. _What am I doing_ , he thought, reaching out for her neck. He brushed the hair off her shoulder, and then with a soft caress along the shell of her ear, curled a piece of stray hair behind it. Clarke shivered at the touch and breathed out heavily near his cheek. Bellamy looked at her from the corner of his eyes. A good kiss was all in the presentation, too. You didn’t just smack lips together and go for it.

 

Well, sometimes you did.

 

Bellamy leaned in from the side, tilting his head. Clarke was breathing through her mouth, and he could feel her hot breath wash over his face. Slowly, he captured her lips with his own using a gentle press, his bottom lip catching beneath hers, and Clarke moaned softly against his mouth. The reverberation sent a tingle throughout his nerves and deep into his belly, and he wanted to kiss her for real.

 

Holding the side of her neck, Bellamy deepened the kiss just slightly, grazing her lips with his tongue. Clarke parted her lips instinctively for Bellamy, knowing just what to do despite it being her first time. Covering her mouth, he delved his tongue in to taste her. He felt Clarke’s fingers sliding into his hair, gripping it, her fingers flexing and clutching. He felt her tongue graze his hesitantly, but her body was very, _very_ responsive.

 

Before he knew it, Clarke was straddling his lap in the closet, his arms were around her, and her hands were all over him. They were both eager and willing and full of want, struggling to touch and kiss, and her hands were tugging up the edges of his shirt, trying to get underneath to touch him. Bellamy didn’t care. He had one hand behind her head, holding her, and the other one was sliding up under her shirt to touch her bare back, his palm grazing over her bra strap.

 

“ . . . Clarke? Clarke, are you here?”

 

Bellamy and Clarke both froze completely, looking to the door of the closet.

 

Clarke’s mom was home.

 

. . . and then her hand was on the door handle, and Bellamy and Clarke separated as quickly as possible, making such a racket as they scrambled to get away from each other and to opposite ends of the closet.

 

The light poured in on them, and both of them looked out to her mother.

 

Abby was staring in shock. She looked at Clarke, then Bellamy, and then back to Clarke.

 

“Well,” Abby said, “I guess I should’ve figured you’d discover boys sooner or later.” She cocked her head to the side, lifting a single eyebrow as she regarded Bellamy with a stern expression.

 

“It’s not what it looks like,” Bellamy tried to explain. “We’re just friends—”

 

“With your shirts half up and your mouths all red?” Abby shot back.

 

Bellamy lowered his gaze.

 

“He’s telling the truth, Mom,” Clarke said, standing up and sidling out of the closet to stand beside her mother. “This is Bellamy,” she added, gesturing at him, “my friend. We’re not seeing each other. We’re just friends. I asked him to kiss me.”

 

Abby placed her hand on her hip. “That was more than just a kiss.”

 

Bellamy was quiet. He figured in this situation it was best to remain silent unless spoken to.

 

“Okay, so we got a little carried away,” Clarke reasoned. “I’m a teenager. What do you expect?”

 

Abby sighed, glancing over at Clarke. “I think it’s time you and me have a talk.”

 

“ _Mom_ —”

 

“Well, if you’re going to be sexually active, Clarke—”

 

“Mom!” Clarke hollered in shock. “I’m still a virgin!”

 

“If you keep up at that pace—”

 

“ _Mom_ —”

 

Abby ignored Clarke, though, and turned her attention to Bellamy. “And what about you, young man? What’s your name again?”

 

Bellamy finally found the courage to stand up. He was taller than Abby, but he didn’t like pissing off Clarke’s mom, so being taller didn’t stop him from feeling smaller. “Bellamy,” he told her. “Bellamy Blake.”

 

“Well,” Abby said, “Bellamy Blake, if you going to make out with my daughter in her closet, the least you can do is introduce yourself to me and come sit at the table with us for dinner, don’t you think?”

 

Bellamy blinked in shock. She was a calm one, this Abby Griffin.

 

He glanced over at Clarke, whose own expression had softened, though she too looked surprised at her mom’s offer. Bellamy turned his gaze back to Abby.

 

“Sure,” he said. “That sounds nice.”

 

Abby smiled genuinely. “Good,” she said, placing her hand on Bellamy’s back as she led him out of the room. “And you can tell me _all_ about yourself . . .”

 

 

_iii. three can keep a secret_

 

Bellamy had Clarke up against the wall again with her skirt lifted, his fingers tearing at her underwear to get them off. With his mouth latched onto her neck, he pulled her panties halfway down her thigh, but her legs were around his waist and there was no way those things were coming off all the way without him moving, and he wasn’t moving.

 

Some time in between practice kissing and finding themselves alone together in dark spaces, Bellamy and Clarke weren’t just friends anymore. Half of the time if they were in public, they couldn’t keep their eyes off each other and they couldn’t stop smiling like idiots at each other, and the second they found a moment alone, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It was like electricity that only sparked worse the closer they got in proximity.

 

With it being late at night and everyone asleep, Bellamy thought it no harm to bring her to his place. He had done it a couple of times now. They were quiet as always. Bellamy always told Clarke they had to be quiet. Space on the Ark was limited, so Bellamy lived with his mom still, but he also still lived with Octavia, the sister that no one knew about.

 

Even Clarke didn’t know about her.

 

Octavia slept in the same room as their mother, and Bellamy had his own room. With Octavia asleep and out of sight of Clarke, he let his guard down and invited Clarke into his home, into his bedroom.

 

He had her on a side table beside a lamp, her back against the wall, her legs around his waist. Apparently, that talk Abby had wanted to have with Clarke involved safe sex. Pregnancy was a huge deal on the Ark, and Abby wanted to make sure Clarke was guarded against it.

 

Needless to say, a few months down the line and a birthday later, Clarke lost her virginity to Bellamy in a supplies closet on Sector Seven.

 

Many times later — too many to count — had led them here. To his room, with his lips on her neck, his teeth scraping gently as Clarke’s nails dug into his skin. His back was raw from her nails, but he didn’t care.

 

“Bellamy, quick, _please_ —”

 

Bellamy growled against her throat. He wasn’t going to argue with her. He hoisted up one of her legs from underneath her knee, his other hand popping the buttons on his pants. When he had himself free, he surprised her by using a little force to push her into the wall suddenly. It was an adrenalin kick, and it did the trick. Clarke loved those, and she gasped as her arm flew out to steady herself against the wall.

 

The only problem was her arm collided with the lamp and knocked it over with a loud crash.

 

Clarke gasped again — only this time for a completely different reason. “Oh _shit_ ,” she swore, her offending hand flying to Bellamy’s shoulder to grasp him firmly. “I’m so sorry—”

 

Bellamy chuckled as he leaned his face back into her neck again. The crash of the lamp had temporarily drawn him away from her. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s just a lamp.”

 

“Not a chess set,” Clarke added wryly.

 

Bellamy laughed louder this time, lifting his head. “Right,” he agreed. “Not a chess set.”

 

He leaned into her, kissing Clarke on the lips with a softer motion than before. She needed to forget about the damn lamp, so they could get back to where they were originally. As he deepened the kiss, though, another voice cut into the dark as the door to his room opened up and a flood of light hit their eyes.

 

“Bell, are you all ri—”

 

Bellamy’s back was to the door, his pants still up. Thankfully, everything was covered. He immediately scrambled to adjust his pants, though, dropping Clarke’s leg as she scrambled to adjust her clothes as well. Bellamy remained standing in front of her as she did so. Otherwise, Octavia would have gotten a full view of Clarke.

 

When Bellamy finally turned around to face her, Octavia was staring straight at them with her mouth open. She was also ringing her hands together. “Um, I’ll go now—”

 

“Octavia—”

 

Quickly, she hurried off.

 

“ _Shit_ ,” Bellamy cursed under his breath. He crossed the room to the door to close it. With his hand still on the handle, he looked up at Clarke. She was standing by the side table, hands at her sides. She was flexing her fingers in and out.

 

“Bellamy, who was that?”

 

The first thing that popped into Bellamy’s head at why Clarke would ask such a question was jealousy, but then he realized Clarke was very calm. She wasn’t jealous. She was worried, though.

 

She was also scared.

 

He looked for a way to cover it up easily. “She’s an old friend of the family,” Bellamy lied, unable to look at Clarke while he said it because he couldn’t lie to her face. “My mom watched her a lot growing up, and they’re really close. She stays with us sometimes.”

 

“Bellamy . . . ”

 

“I don’t really know her that well—”

 

“ _Bellamy_.”

 

He stopped lying. Bellamy lifted his eyes to look at Clarke. She had crossed the room since he had started talking, and now she was only a few feet away from him.

 

“She called you ‘Bell,’” Clarke pointed out softly, lifting her brow.

 

Bellamy felt the muscles in his face draw taut. “She’s just a friend of the family,” he insisted, but Clarke’s eyes were sad at the same time that they were pleading with him.

 

“What’s her last name?” Clarke asked in a quiet voice.

 

Bellamy hesitated. He didn’t know what to say. “James—”

 

“You hesitated.”

 

“Clarke—”

 

“So,” Clarke continued, “if I go looking for an Octavia James—”

 

He took her by the shoulders. “Clarke, _please_.” He was pleading with her using every ounce of his being. Of anyone in the world who could betray him and his family, Bellamy never once thought it might be her. “Please, you can’t go looking. You can’t go digging. You can’t tell anyone. _Please_.” He felt his lip tremble. “Clarke, please . . . ”

 

Realization dawned in Clarke’s eyes, deepening the look in them as her pupils widened. “She’s your sister . . . ”

 

Bellamy didn’t say anything, but he felt his fingers clutch tighter into Clarke’s arms as his teeth ground into his skull.

 

“Can I . . . ” Clarke began, trailing off. She drew in a ragged breath. “Can I talk to her?”

 

Bellamy was confused. His fingers loosened their hold on her, but Clarke didn’t even seem to notice. She was staring at a point beyond his shoulder. At the door through which Octavia had left. Her eyes seemed far away, unseeing. Her mouth opened, a shaky breath coming out, but no words. He couldn’t imagine why Clarke wanted to talk to Octavia, but she wasn’t afraid or angry. She looked infinitely sad, and yet in awe.

 

“I mean, she must’ve been all alone her whole life,” Clarke whispered. “You and you mother, but no one else. Always hiding . . . always alone . . . here, in these four walls . . . ”

 

Bellamy hadn’t expected such a reaction.

 

He had never expected this.

 

Gently, he took Clarke by the hand. He walked her out of his room into their small living quarters. Bellamy stepped right up to his mom’s bedroom door and knocked lightly. He wanted to get Octavia’s attention without waking up their mother. He doubted Octavia was even asleep when she heard the lamp fall.

 

“Octavia?” Bellamy said quietly through the door, leaning close to it. His hand still held Clarke’s. “Someone wants to see you. Would you like to come out?”

 

There was no response for a long while, and then the door slowly pulled inward, revealing a strip of blackness and Octavia’s head peeking through the opening.

 

Bellamy let go of Clarke’s hand, and Clarke stepped forward. There was a look of pain and astonishment on her face as she raised her hand to her mouth, and then she lowered it back to her side.

 

“Hi,” she said in a soft voice, smiling at Octavia. “I’m Clarke.”

 

Octavia stared at her, unsure, and then she looked to Bellamy. He nodded his head. Slowly, Octavia crept out of the room, closing the door behind her.

 

“Hi,” she whispered back. “I’m Octavia.”

 

 

_iv. you can hatch a plan_

 

Clarke could’ve gone to her best friend, Wells, about whatever important thing had come up that she needed to talk about, especially since Bellamy was on duty, but Clarke insisted that she had to talk to him and no one else. He was an actual guard now, and he was doing patrols when she found him. She pulled him aside into a supplies closet for privacy. Furrowing his brow, Bellamy glanced up and wondered if this was that same supplies closet from last year. It certainly looked familiar.

 

His amusing thoughts were interrupted when Clarke said, “The Ark is dying.”

 

Bellamy immediately dropped his gaze and his jaw. “What?”

 

“The life support system is failing,” Clarke told him. “We’ll be out of oxygen in a few months. Three, maybe four. My father discovered the flaw in the system—”

 

“Wait, what?” Bellamy couldn’t believe his ears. “The Ark is dying?”

 

“Yes,” Clarke whispered.

 

“We’re dying,” he repeated.

 

Slowly, Clarke nodded. “But there’s something else,” Clarke said, leaning in close to Bellamy. “They’re sending juvenile delinquents to the ground. To _Earth_. They want to see if the land is habitable again, and they want to use the prison population. The _dispensable_ population.”

 

Bellamy was beginning to feel light-headed. “Earth?” he said. “They want to send people back to _Earth_?”

 

“Yes,” Clarke told him. “It will save another month or two or more of oxygen, give them time to work on the problem. My dad and I are setting up a radio broadcast to air the same day the dropship launches to the tell the people what’s going on. It will get everyone involved to find a solution. The transmission is faceless and the voice will be scrambled, so will the signal’s origins. They won’t know who did it, or who sent it.”

 

“Well, you’ve got this all planned,” Bellamy replied with a hint of awe.

 

“There’s one more thing, Bellamy,” Clarke added. She stared up at him. “I want to go to Earth.”

 

Bellamy didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go,” he said immediately. “I’m a guard. I can sneak us on board the dropship.”

 

“You can sneak yourself on,” Clarke said pointedly. “You and Octavia. It’ll be easier that way. Three is too risky. They’ll catch us. I’ll get on another way.”

 

“Yeah?” Bellamy asked, perplexed. “What’s that?”

 

Clarke smirked at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“I’ll get myself arrested.”

 

 

_v. it’s all in the landing_

 

Disconnecting from the ship was one thing. Sailing calmly through space was another. But when they hit the atmosphere, the entire dropship rattled like it was going to be ripped into a million shreds. Bellamy had to close his eyes, grit his teeth, and dig his nails into the armrests of his seat just to bring himself to center.

 

Across from him in the other seat on the bridge, Octavia clutched onto her straps and squeezed her eyes shut. They had snuck on board and hidden themselves until the launch, and then they had to strap themselves into seats or they would have died the moment they hit atmosphere and gravity struck the vessel.

 

When the dropship landed with a thunderous boom on Earth’s surface, Bellamy unhooked his straps and stumbled out of his seat. Octavia was beside him in the other unused pilot seat. Bellamy helped her with her straps, and they walked out of the small bridge.

 

The main level was full of seats for the prisoners. Many of them had already undone their straps as well, losing their footing as they scrambled out of their seats. Bellamy looked over their heads for Clarke.

 

He saw her, walking towards him. Bellamy smiled at Clarke, grinning so wide at the sight of her. She grinned back, and she was still grinning when she reached him.

 

“We made it,” Clarke murmured, her eyes glittering.

 

“Yeah,” he said right back, his voice quiet. “We made it.” Bellamy cocked an eyebrow. “Well, if the air doesn’t kill us. You know, it could be poisonous.”

 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Clarke said, smirking, as she walked over to the lever. She pulled it.

 

The dropship opened up, hissing as steam filled the air around them. Beyond the steam, there was bright light. It poured into the ship, stinging their eyes.

 

Bellamy walked up to Clarke’s side. He took her hand in his, lacing his fingers with hers. She looked up at him. He looked down at her.

 

They smiled at each other.

 

Together, they walked out into a new world.

 

 


End file.
